and he sings, too

I’ve given this blog address to a few friends who don’t do Bikram or know anything about the yoga or the controversial man behind it…but most of the readers are kids from my studio and, therefore, practitioners.

The uninitiated might be bored by this post. Be warned.

The big question for anyone at teacher training is this:

What’s he like?

I keep broaching the subject and always give up before I’ve written so much as a word. It is difficult to verbally constipate me, but he has.
There is too much to say and the thoughts create a traffic jam in my throat until nothing gets through. But I want to write something now. Just a small something. Tiny. I want to do it before my opinion of him becomes colored and informed by his opinion of me…which it will…because I’m an incredibly average person and susceptible to exactly that sort of average response, thought, and feeling.

And so, before he screams at me or tells me I’m a lazy idiot (and he will. he really enjoys the word "idiot". ask anyone who's gone through training before me.) I’ll say what I can about him...and I’ll say it the way I say things….

One night, after a challenging practice and during our final savasana, Bikram blasted a song through the speakers of the 7000 square foot studio. He insisted that we must stay on our mats and listen to the music because it was his song off of his new c.d. He loves the personal/possesive pronouns "me" and "mine". He pranced and paraded around with his trademark bravado. Bikram Choudhury loves being Bikram Choudhury.
I’d just done my second two hour class that day, I was hungry and exhausted, and I suddenly found myself hostaged on my mat by NINE EXCRUCIATING MINUTES of music so cheesy I'd have gladly traded it in for an apendectomy. Weird synthetic instrumentals and sappy, syrupy lyrics surrounded me at top volume. I know art is subjective....but still.....

Supine on my mat, I thought, “oh my god. what have I done?”
Of all the traditional strains of yoga, philosophy, practice, evolution…I chose him:

A man who chews cough drops and makes loud crunching sounds into his microphone during class.

A man who says things like “you know who is my best friend?”
“Imelda Marcos is my best friend. I buy with her the shoes. Is true.” Or, “I invented disco. Ask anyone. Is true.”

A man who will devote twenty minutes of lecture time to a corned beef sandwich he ate in Tacoma in 1974.

A man who drives a Bentley and wears powder blue track suits.

A man who loves Richard Nixon.

I thought the song would never end.
I thought I’d never leave that room.


The following night, after a challenging practice and during final savasana, another song floated through the room.
There was no sound coming through the speakers this time. It wasn’t a recording, it was live. He was sitting on the floor, still and small and diminutive, eclipsed beneath the gigantic teacher’s podium. He was singing acapella--his voice lucid, warm, raspy--in Hindi. The melody was delicate and dissonant, the unrecognizable lyrics were melancholy and sublime. It was as sweet and beautiful a sound as I have ever heard in my life.

I hoped the song would never end.
I hoped i'd never leave that room.


In telling those two slivers of stories, I don’t even know what I mean exactly. I only know that I mean it.